No Thank You, Don’t Come Again

Amer Othman Adi has no criminal record and has been a productive community member in the US since the 1970s. ICE has arrested him, and sent him to jail to await deportation. Jorge Garcia was brought to America at 10 years old. Thirty years, a wife, and two children later and the Trump Administration is deporting him, too. In a move both tragic and insultingly stereotyping, ICE raided 7-Eleven stores nationwide in hopes of finding undocumented immigrants to deport. That was all in 2018. And it will only get worse. In response to California’s sanctuary status –and in support of their state’s right to have such status – California has declined to comply with ICE orders. In response, ICE has stated that it has “no choice but to conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at worksites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests.” Instead of worrying about reducing poverty or violent crime, Trump is using the families of undocumented individuals as political pawns in slighting state and local officials and as bargaining chips in the DACA debate in Washington. We’re America and we should better than this.